Oscar Underwood

Oscar Underwood (6 May 1862-25 January 1929) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-AL 9) from 4 March 1895 to 9 June 1896 (succeeding Louis W. Turpin and preceding Truman H. Aldrich) and from 4 March 1897 to 4 March 1915 (succeeding Aldrich and preceding George Huddleston), as well as US Senator from Alabama from 4 March 1915 to 4 March 1927 (succeeding Francis S. White and preceding Hugo Black).

Biography
Oscar Underwood was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1862, the grandson of Senator Joseph R. Underwood. In 1865, the family moved to Minnesota, but the family returned to Kentucky ten years later. Underwood would attempt to start a legal career in Minnesota, but his brother later convinced him that he would have better opportunities in Alabama. He worked as a lawyer for a decade, and he then served in the US House of Representatives from 1895 to 1896 and from 1897 to 1915, as well as in the US Senate from 1915 to 1927. He served as House Majority Leader from 1911 to 1915, and he was a strong supporter of President Woodrow Wilson's progressive agenda and the reduction of tariffs. As a Senator, he unsuccessfully opposed Prohibition. Despite a previous failure in 1912, he sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1924 as an opponent of the Ku Klux Klan, but he narrowly failed to adopt a Democratic resolution condemning the Klan. He declined to run for re-election in 1926, and he died in Fairfax County, Virginia in 1929.